Monday, November 9, 2009

Nope

Another night, another not Jiangsu post. All this vacationing really takes it out of you, you know? But I couldn't go to bed without sharing a brief anecdote about Gristle, light of my life, fire of my lo meins. We saw him tonight for the first time since leaving for Jiangsu, and a week without Gristle is like a week without this weird type of sunshine that isn't really a good friend but more just sunshine that hangs out and stores stuff in our fridge (and who, incidentally, sometimes uses a bag that is clearly a purse intended for ladies.)

Gristle was over at our house tonight for our weekly Cantonese lesson, and at the end of the lesson he was talking to us about Halloween. We said that we went to a Halloween party with Chinese students at Nanjing University (I promise that you'll get to hear about this if I ever post about our trip to the Godot of the East), and he said that he had also been to a Halloween party! A foot fetish party.

And I was half tuning Gristle out, as I sometimes do because he talks a lot, and so I half nodded along to this last admission before stopping suddenly, because he said foot fetish party, which is a party, he said, where men and women wear tight black stockings and partygoers are invited to stroke and kiss them with impunity, which is a type of party that I have never been to, nor heard of, nor known to exist except in pansexual Central American love communes, which will throw you any kind of party you like. Seriously. Anything.

Or so I've heard.

So China has foot fetish parties, which, despite involving neither costumes nor the demanding of treats, are sometimes held on Halloween. AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THIS IS CRAZY? WHAT THE EFF IS HAPPENING AROUND HERE? AND WHY AM I HERE?